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If you’ve spent much time thinking about the political divide in the United States, you’ve hopefully noted how bloody weird it is. Somehow, just about every topic that people want to argue about splits into two camps. If you visualize the vast array of topics you could have an opinion about as a switchboard full of toggles, it seems improbable that so many people in each camp should have nearly identical switchboards, but they do. This can even extend to factual issues, like science—one camp typically does not accept that climate change is real and human-caused.

How in the world do we end up with these opinion sets? And why does something like climate change start an inter-camp argument, while other things like the physics behind airplane design enjoy universal acceptance?

One obvious way to explain these opinions is to look for underlying principles that connect them. Maybe it’s ideologically consistent to oppose both tax increases and extensive government oversight of pesticide products. But can you really draw a straight line from small-government philosophy to immigration attitudes? Or military funding?

Politics and hit songs

A new study by a Cornell team led by Michael Macy approaches these questions with inspiration from an experiment involving, of all things, downloading indie music. That study set up separate “worlds” in which participants checked out new music with the aid of information about which songs other people in their experimental world were choosing. It showed that the songs that were “hits” weren’t always the same—there was a significant role for chance, as a song that got trending early in the experiment had a leg up.

To see if this sort of “accident of history” model could apply to political divisions, the researchers set up a similar experiment. A total of over 4,500 online participants were split into two experiments where each had an equal number of self-identified Democrats and Republicans. The researchers then created ten separate “worlds” in each experiment.

For the first experiment, all the participants were asked whether they agreed with 20 different statements that had been chosen to plausibly be politically controversial, but not actively subjects of argument today. Topics included things like cryptocurrency, a proposal to switch to licensed professional jurors, and gene-editing. In two of the ten experimental worlds, people simply saw these statements and were asked, “As a [Democrat/Republican], do you agree or disagree with this statement?”

The other eight worlds are where it got fun. After the first person had responded to these statements, every other participant would also see whether Republicans or Democrats were more likely to agree with the statement, with that statistic updated following each response. After everyone finished the survey, you could see which statements ended up being Republican positions, and which ended up being Democratic ones.

Enlarge/ In different "worlds", different statements (represented by numbers) were adopted by Republicans or Democrats. In worlds 1 and 2 (left side), participants didn't get any information about how others were scoring these statements, leading to less polarization.

Compared to the two worlds without information about how others were responding, the eight “social influence” worlds were significantly more polarized. And among those eight worlds—just like the indie music experiment—different positions became Republican or Democrat “hits” in different worlds.

Who needs consistency?

Using the results from the two non-social worlds, you could pretty accurately predict some of the positions in the other worlds, and there was apparently some inherent ideological consistency in these items. But overall, the early responses (the trend-setters) in each world were a far better predictor of the final scores. Once a few responses moved the average away from the middle, a topic’s fate would more or less be sealed through what’s known as an “opinion cascade.” In order to flip the stat from one party to the other, you’d need an increasingly long run of people to ignore the social cue and vote the other way.

The team’s second experiment was quite similar but produced slightly different results. The setup was the same, except that instead of asking participants “As a Democrat, do you agree?”, they were asked to predict which party would be more likely to agree if there were a separate, real-world survey. Additionally, in between seeing the results from previous participants and giving their answer, they were also asked whether their party’s stance on the topic was likely to be based on principles, historical precedent, or popularity with the party’s base.

This fairly subtle change (along with the promise of a $100 prize for the top predictor) apparently got people’s brains working differently. In this version of the experiment, social influence was a little less important, and a significant number of people voted contrary to the trend. The final results turned out more similar to the outcome of the two worlds in which there was no social information provided. Still, the early responses in the social worlds was still the best predictor of how each one would end up.

Obviously, these experiments aren’t exactly like the real world, where political leaders can try to steer their parties. Still, it’s another way to show that some political beliefs aren’t inviolable principles—some are likely just the result of a historical accident reinforced by a potent form of tribal peer pressure. And in the early days of an issue, people are particularly susceptible to tribal cues as they form an opinion.

The researchers suggest that knowing this could make you more tolerant of opposing opinions. But given the ardor with which we tell ourselves stories that fortify our opinions and choices, that may require some decidedly Herculean introspection.

190 Reader Comments

- If someone suggests a new girlfriend for me and I ask "is she black?" I'm racist.

Dude if your only question or first question about a blind date is "Are they black?" yeah you very well just might be a racist. At least I am going to look at you like "WTF?".

Seriously, dude? THAT is your take-away from my post?

I didn't mention it because it wasn't germane, but along with 95% of political OPINIONS being contingent on history, not the result of deep analysis, 95% of political BEHAVIOR is signaling:either in the weak "look at me, I'm a good member of the tribe" or strong "look at me, I'm better than you at displaying my loyalty to the tribe" forms...

Looks like the solution is to actually vote for the person and their stances on real issues?Nonpartisan legislature seems to be a good solution.Perhaps?

That is the theory behind the First Past The Post election system. However, history has proven that party politics, particularly when mixed with the corrupting influence of money on the election process, will quickly make an effective two-party system out of a FPTP election system, with most of the real power vested in the party leadership.

- If someone suggests a new girlfriend for me and I ask "is she black?" I'm racist.

Dude if your only question or first question about a blind date is "Are they black?" yeah you very well just might be a racist. At least I am going to look at you like "WTF?".

Seriously, dude? THAT is your take-away from my post?

I didn't mention it because it wasn't germane, but along with 95% of political OPINIONS being contingent on history, not the result of deep analysis, 95% of political BEHAVIOR is signaling:either in the weak "look at me, I'm a good member of the tribe" or strong "look at me, I'm better than you at displaying my loyalty to the tribe" forms...

Your words you posted it. Yes if someones main question about a potential date is their ethnicity than yes it is completely reasonable to think that person maybe racist.

And you didn't mention "signaling" because signaling is often used as code for SJW territory arguments. When someone calls another out on potential racist behavior and the counter is "You are signaling" it means "Shit, they saw right through my bullshit, better back up to "Your just being overly sensitive to race issues so you look good in front of the other liberals""

Study confirms what anyone who's gone thru high school should know: people generally prefer to belong to a group than to think for themselves.

I suspect this issue won't reverse course soon. There are more issues to discuss today and less time to consider them. Add AI-reinforced echo chambers, and thoughtful argument rapidly loses the "thoughtful."

It's not just a preference. It is a necessity. Nobody has time to be an expert on all issues, so everybody has to take the majority opinion of their peers and support it on most issues. Don't forget - politics is not the most important issue for most people. Nor should it be.

Almost everything in politics is contingent, attitudes dependent on prior history rather than on deep analysis of the issues. And today is no different.- If someone suggests a new girlfriend for me and I ask "is she black?" I'm racist.- I a college is thinking of admitting a student and they DON'T ask "is she black", they're racist.- If I say "perhaps some aspects of being female are hardwired at birth", I'm a terrible human- If I say "perhaps some aspects of being gay are NOT hardwired at birth", I'm a terrible human

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The other issues is these 4 points you brought up have a historical context to them when produced as part of an argument.

-" I a college is thinking of admitting a student and they DON'T ask "is she black", they're racist."

This statement is often a subject matter when the emerging argument will be how A.A. or racial diversity compliance in Universities is a form of reverse racism.

"- If I say "perhaps some aspects of being female are hardwired at birth", I'm a terrible human"

This one is often used when the emerging argument will be that transgender-ism is a mental health disease and not a normal byproduct of the spectrum of sexual identity. Its not that bringing it up is automatically a "You are a terrible human" it is that almost EVERY time it is brought up the conclusion will be gender is fixed at conception and therefore transgender-ism is incorrect and an abnormality.

"- If I say "perhaps some aspects of being gay are NOT hardwired at birth", I'm a terrible human" Like the above example this one is an entering argument that homosexuality is nurture rather than nature and therefore is a mental health disorder and it is only compassionate to "fix" people.

It's not a issue of virtue signalling or over reaction, the reaction to these statements is they have been used over and over and over again to make claims that the science does not support and statements that are antithetical to human well-being.

That being said, I think the specific arguments you made are relevant to the overall subject of this article. I really don't care whether the US takes in more or less immigrants than any other country. I'm not sure it's accurate, but even if it is, so what? We lead the world in both military spending and in medical research R&D money. Whether those stats are a good thing or a bad thing is entirely dependent upon your view of those spending categories. Your statistic is a persuasive argument only if you already have a negative opinion on the value of immigrants. Yet you stated it as though it were an obvious argument in favor of lowering immigration numbers. I'm not in your head and don't want to claim to know what you were thinking, but it certainly seems as if you were completely unaware of the implicit bias against immigrants in that statement, and that you simply assumed everyone else shared them.

Quote:

The relevant point is that when you analyze an issue, you start with a number of base assumptions. There's a human tendency to assume that everyone else, or at least all right-thinking people, shares those base assumptions. I think having a similar set of base assumptions is part of what groups people into left and right categories. And I think that not sharing that core set of base assumptions is one of the reasons some people don't fit into either category.

This is a very good way to put this both when it comes to immigration specifically, and opinions in general. I'm an engineer, and have always found it infuriating that so many of my fellows operate almost exclusively on rules of thumb. Few of them seem to appreciate the implicit bias of the the underlying assumptions baked into those rules, and how it can cause them to go astray when they extrapolate them too far. I hadn't realized until I read these two paragraphs that same tendency to refuse to reason from first principles and over simplify everything is behind a lot of the problems in political discourse.

I want to see the experiment where they inform people of the trend but lie. In particular, a comparison between keeping the claimed attitudes fairly static and one scenario (world) where the info was inverted from the results. Would the inverted oscillate around the mean or have some other pattern?

Study confirms what anyone who's gone thru high school should know: people generally prefer to belong to a group than to think for themselves.

I suspect this issue won't reverse course soon. There are more issues to discuss today and less time to consider them. Add AI-reinforced echo chambers, and thoughtful argument rapidly loses the "thoughtful."

It's not just a preference. It is a necessity. Nobody has time to be an expert on all issues, so everybody has to take the majority opinion of their peers and support it on most issues. Don't forget - politics is not the most important issue for most people. Nor should it be.

Do you believe that "Well, I'm ignorant here, but Clinton/Trump/Other said X" helps anything? If so, what?

It's okay to say, "I don't know." (IMO, that's far better than mindlessly repeating the buzzphrase of the day or complete speculation.) And it's okay to decide, "I'll base my vote on these 3 issues that really matter to me, accepting the baggage that comes with it." What's not helpful - again IMO - is believing, "Well, I support X, so I must blindly agree with everything else that influential X supporters also say."

Almost everything in politics is contingent, attitudes dependent on prior history rather than on deep analysis of the issues. And today is no different.- If someone suggests a new girlfriend for me and I ask "is she black?" I'm racist.- I a college is thinking of admitting a student and they DON'T ask "is she black", they're racist.- If I say "perhaps some aspects of being female are hardwired at birth", I'm a terrible human- If I say "perhaps some aspects of being gay are NOT hardwired at birth", I'm a terrible human

The other issues is these 4 points you brought up have a historical context to them when produced as part of an argument.

-" I a college is thinking of admitting a student and they DON'T ask "is she black", they're racist."

This statement is often a subject matter when the emerging argument will be how A.A. or racial diversity compliance in Universities is a form of reverse racism.

"- If I say "perhaps some aspects of being female are hardwired at birth", I'm a terrible human"

This one is often used when the emerging argument will be that transgender-ism is a mental health disease and not a normal byproduct of the spectrum of sexual identity. Its not that bringing it up is automatically a "You are a terrible human" it is that almost EVERY time it is brought up the conclusion will be gender is fixed at conception and therefore transgender-ism is incorrect and an abnormality.

"- If I say "perhaps some aspects of being gay are NOT hardwired at birth", I'm a terrible human" Like the above example this one is an entering argument that homosexuality is nurture rather than nature and therefore is a mental health disorder and it is only compassionate to "fix" people.

It's not a issue of virtue signalling or over reaction, the reaction to these statements is they have been used over and over and over again to make claims that the science does not support and statements that are antithetical to human well-being.[/quote]

Can you truly not see that you are PROVING my point?For every case I gave, your argument is “the right way to think of this is because <historical reasons>”...When the history was different (eg women vs gay) the “correct” answer arrived at was different...

You do understand that this is not an argument about “what are the correct political beliefs”, but about “why do people believe what they do”?You do understand that when I give examples of this sort, I am speaking in the subjunctive, and these examples give zero insight into my personal beliefs?

I have thought for some time the way political discussions are held in the US that we have problems with allowing people to think or speak for themselves by priming them. If only someone would have warned us about political parties... of course, not sure how that greener grass alternative works.

Can you truly not see that you are PROVING my point?For every case I gave, your argument is “the right way to think of this is because <historical reasons>”...

No, they were saying that the supposedly innocent statements all have subtext that makes them less innocent and more controversial, and that people would react to that subtext. And those are not "historical reasons" but rather discussion strategies that are employed in present debates.

Quote:

When the history was different (eg women vs gay) the “correct” answer arrived at was different...

At different times, the subtext was different – which shows, BTW that subtext is not static but rather changing over time. That's pretty much the opposite of "historical".

Also, I don't see where in the comment they said anything about you of personally harboring any of those beliefs.

I recently did an interesting exercise. My country has a multi-party parliamentary system with proportional representation, but with two parties that are similar to Republicans and Democrats that tend to dominate.I read through the constitutions and core values of every party likely to get more than 1% of the vote, and compared them with my values.I'd quite likely be described as a 'conservative', as you'll find me in church most Sundays, and engage in church related activities during the week.On the other hand, I'm quite analytical, and while I'd describe faith as my motivation, I'd describe science as my point of reference for implementation.Even my faith itself has been subject to analytical scrutiny, and I've asked myself whether application of spiritual beliefs have positive or negative consequences in my life.This means I can take an issue like climate change, and from a faith perspective conclude that there is a strong biblical theme that the well-being of life on earth is pleasing to God, but from a scientific perspective, the climate is changing in a detrimental way to much life on earth, and the most obvious reason for this is human action, based on available evidence.Being 'conservative', I don't particularly like abortion, but then I weigh up the proportionality of thousands of lives potentially affected vs millions or billions of humans, not to mention other species, by climate change, and supporting conservative politicians who either deny climate change outright, or at least the need to act on it, simply is not an option for me if I'm 'pro-life', in it's widest possible sense nor is supporting any kind of violence against abortion practitioners.My country doesn't have a Second Amendment, but if it did, I'd take "Love your neighbour. Thou Shalt not Kill. Love your enemy, etc" as higher moral authority than constitutional law, which I guess would put me in a more 'left' or 'progressive' position on gun rights.

Ultimately, my study of all parties in my country led me to a somewhat surprising conclusion. The party that most represents my values has been labelled 'far-left' by some, and yet this is largely due to a vocal group within the party, but is not a mandatory position of the party according to its values or constitution. There are certainly some strong moderate voices within the party too, but precisely the social influence effect identified in this article, is why the party in question tends to evoke apprehension in moderate voters.

Maybe I'm an anomaly amongst voters, (well maybe not on Ars, as regardless of political affiliation, I guess people here are more likely to think critically to arrive at whatever political position they take), but amongst the wider voting public in many democracies, I suspect many are more tribal than analytical in their choices.

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.

The problem is that they didn't envision a solution to it. It's all well and good to say "don't do this thing", but the system they designed will necessarily devolve into precisely that thing.

Political parties were always going to be a thing; there's no escaping that in politics. What the founders should have done is stop being afraid of them and build a system that would ensure that there were many viable parties. That's the best way to deal with the problems of a two-party system.

The problem is that they didn't envision a solution to it. It's all well and good to say "don't do this thing", but the system they designed will necessarily devolve into precisely that thing.

Political parties were always going to be a thing; there's no escaping that in politics. What the founders should have done is stop being afraid of them and build a system that would ensure that there were many viable parties. That's the best way to deal with the problems of a two-party system.

To be fair, party discipline historically has been pretty weak in the US compared to elsewhere. Vote against the party in a Westminster parliament and you’re automatically ejected (normally; Brexit is making Britain weird). House and senate members sometimes vote against the party line and while there’s wailing about DINO/RINOs you still generally caucus with your party.

One thing that particularly bugs me is that lots of congressional seats have *no* competition. Neither at the primary nor in the general. In a Westminster system if you don’t run a candidate in a riding it’s a sign your party fucked up badly, is a joke, or made a deal with another party to avoid splitting the vote.

My country has a multi-party system. On the one extreme we have tiny single issue parties, which might an important issue, but the party does not have fleshed out ideas on other issues; while on the other extreme we have big parties that can afford advisers from many fields but always have important issues I disagree with. It is weird that I must vote for the same party to run each aspect of government, rather than for each aspect of government I can vote (or abstain from voting) for a different party.

You do understand that this is not an argument about “what are the correct political beliefs”, but about “why do people believe what they do”?You do understand that when I give examples of this sort, I am speaking in the subjunctive, and these examples give zero insight into my personal beliefs?

I believe what I do, due to decency. I call out dog whistling because I have seen it used over and over again to launch into tactics that lead to horrible places.

For example if someone starts a conversation in a vaccination thread with "How come no one is considering the diseases that illegal immigrants are bringing into the country?" that person is going to launch into an anti-immigration stance based on a misleading position about "Just caring about protecting the legal citizens". How would I know that? Well a combination of experience and the fact that such concerns are already addresses and statistically shown to be a false position.

If some launches in a converstaion with "If blacks and whites have equally capable brains than why do blacks do worse on I.Q. tests?" than I know that the questioner is intentionally leaving out the cultural and social impacts of racism on education that would have completely answered the question they just raised.

"Women's brains are just "different" than a man's" is an opening to attempt to argue that misogyny has a physical scientific reason for existing and therefore is a valid position to take when in reality science says no such thing.

"Homosexuality is not in the brain" or "Homosexuality has no "gay" gene" is an attempt to make the false claim that since there is no "gay gene" homosexuality must be choice and not built in, which makes expansions of the argument against homosexuality "seem" valid.

If a person's response to "I have a person you should meet " is "Is she black?" means that ethnic traits are the first and most important trait that they want to know more about before continuing with the conversation. It would be the deal maker or deal breaker which in either case indicates that the questioner has a hang up on ethnicities.

Can you truly not see that you are PROVING my point?For every case I gave, your argument is “the right way to think of this is because <historical reasons>”...

No, they were saying that the supposedly innocent statements all have subtext that makes them less innocent and more controversial, and that people would react to that subtext. And those are not "historical reasons" but rather discussion strategies that are employed in present debates.

Quote:

When the history was different (eg women vs gay) the “correct” answer arrived at was different...

At different times, the subtext was different – which shows, BTW that subtext is not static but rather changing over time. That's pretty much the opposite of "historical".

Also, I don't see where in the comment they said anything about you of personally harboring any of those beliefs.

Oh for crying out loud! I'll try one more time. The opinions of the parties (or if you prefer, the "left" and the "right") have flip flopped on a large number of subjects. I've mentioned some. Others include the environment, the best ways to educate (eg bilingual education), immigration, and even tax cuts. And this is just in the last 80 years or so.

But in your opinion every one of these changed because the entire party population suddenly decided in lock step that they were looking at things the wrong way?I'm sorry, not only is that an idiotic claim, it is grossly unhistoric. Every one of these things has been investigated in detail, and the pattern is what I am describing.

The overall problem is that you're looking at things from the perspective that "the people" and "the party" are in some way different things. They're not.

Take the issue of race. Before the Civil Rights era, both parties were as a rule iffy on the subject of race. But that's being too reductive. The reality is that race was not a party issue; it was a regional issue.

Most racists lived in the south. So most politicians from the south supported racist things, or at least mitigated attempts to create equality. However, as the Civil Rights movement started to kick in, people in non-south areas decided that maybe racial equality is a good thing, so politicians followed suit.

This became framed as a Democrat thing, primarily because it was clearly the wish of two Democratic Presidents who were pushing the agenda.

It is because of that framing that people started to change their voting pattern. In the past, the south voted primarily Democratic for various reasons (aka: Lincoln was a Republican, and they were still butthurt over that war the south started). And in the immediate aftermath, they continued to do so, since most southern congressmen voted against civil rights, Republican or Democrat.

For a while.

The congress people from these areas still had to get elected, so they still would use racist dog whistles and other things. For a time, they were Democrats, but later Republicans cropped up who started doing the same thing. And as new generations of voters with no historical prejudice against voting Republican came along, they started to do so. Hence the shift in parties.

And note that the framing worked both ways. With the framing of the Democratic party as being anti-racist, they made themselves very attractive to people of color. Not at first in the south of course (because viable Democratic candidates there were still pretty bad), but those elsewhere. That support led to more Democratic candidates of color being elected. Which caused a feedback effect.

But it all comes back to the people. Party ideology is ultimately founded on what those voters want to support. The people believed the Democratic party was being anti-racist, so anti-racist people voted for them and racist people voted against them.

Again, this did not happen suddenly. It took decades and generational replacement for it to happen. But it happened from the ground up.

People and party are not so different as you would like to claim that they are.

I know it hurts your sensibilities to learn that all this time, when you thought were independently discovering the truths of the world (which just so happened to line up on most details with most of your friends...) you were in fact just following the crowd.But you now have a choice you can make. I've given you a framework for understanding, a number of references, and a number of examples. You can either demonstrate that you actually ARE responsive to arguments and evidence, by following all that up. Or you can be exactly the thing you claim you are not, and insist that I have to be wrong, and can be dismissed without even bothering to consider what I've said, because after all, the tribe has spoken.

Oh fuck off with that "if you don't agree with me, you're wrong" bullshit.

In short, I don't fit into either a left or a right mode in US politics. I'm not comfortable supporting either the Republican or the Democratic agenda and don't identify with either one of them. I know I'm not the only person like this, and those of us who don't fit don't agree with one another about many things. I'm really interested in why so many people seem to fall into one side or the other and why some of us just don't see the world that way.

I think some of it comes down to basic personality traits that are then shaped by the social environment.

If you tend to sympathize with the underdog, maybe that draws you toward the Left. If you like strong, authoritative leaders, maybe that draws you toward the Right. After that initial push, then if you have a strong desire for belonging and group identity, then you'll probably align your views with the other people on your side.

If you don't have a strong desire for belonging and group identity, then maybe you're less likely to bend your views to match those on your "team".

Personally, my desire for independence has always outweighed any desire to belong to a group, so that naturally tended to draw me toward libertarian-leaning views. At the same time, I've always been skeptical of purely theoretical ideologies, and as a result I tend to disagree with libertarian purists on a number of issues.

Political parties were always going to be a thing; there's no escaping that in politics. What the founders should have done is stop being afraid of them and build a system that would ensure that there were many viable parties. That's the best way to deal with the problems of a two-party system.

I know. I hate Trump. And yet, I'm having to seriously consider voting for this idiot to keep the regressive left out of power. I've been to Europe and China. I prefer America. I know, it sounds like lunacy, especially with the current GOP teality distortion field. And anyone who looks at my posts probably doesn't understand that I am a registered Democrat. Strange times in politics indeed, when voting for that which you abhor seems like the rational choice.

Can I have a normal party to support, instead of all these crazies?[/quote]

Then you are willfully and intentionally overreacting to the volume of the progressive wing's voice versus their actual political power. AOC is not representative of a seismic shift in party thinking of older Democrats and neither is Twitter, this has been demonstrably proven with data as well.

Crazies will never go away and on the Left they're not any louder than they were before, you're just paying more attention and being oversensitive.

Which means you're either trolling or sabotaging your own party to tilt at windmills representing an inevitable party paradigm shift that's still 15-20 years off and only slightly accelerated/exaggerated by Trump to start with.

For certain core beliefs, I can cite my upbringing, and you can sum it up with the golden rule combined with "if they aren't hurting anyone it is none of my or anyone else's business", and anyone who tries to encroach and interfere with someone's personal business even if they have familial relations in a negative way is in the wrong. I have always had a strong belief in the scientific process, I blame oil industry smear campaign for making it political.

Beyond that as something I have learned over time, I believe capitalism works- so long as the government moderating and protecting it gets its taxes, and makes sure no one gets anti-competitive with key goods and services, as greed is as effective a motivator for technological progress as war, often more so. Having been called for jury duty (my county has a very effective system for it you have to be in the courthouse every day until they let you go, one group of jurors on Monday, and another on Wednesday, 5 day minimum unless let out early (longer cases in the half of the week the new group gets there)) I don't think having professional jurors is a good idea.

It's interesting that there is a relatively small group of people who don't fall into the left/right spectrum. Most people would probably call me libertarian, and it sounds like you have similar leanings. I don't call myself a libertarian because there are areas where I disagree with them sharply. I think the free market is generally good but not a panacea. There are areas, such as health care, where it falls flat on its face. I'm pro-choice, favor largely open borders and think Trump is a racist idiot. On the other hand, I think people have a right to their own opinions and a right to act on those opinions short of violence against other people. I don't think anyone should be forced to make a wedding cake for someone else, even if their reason for not doing so is bigoted. I think the 2nd Amendment clearly protects the right of individuals to bear arms and if you want to change that, you need to start by changing the Constitution. I think it's absurd to judge historical figures by current ethical standards. I do not think that human beings are blank slates, and do think that there are inherent biological differences between men and women that extend beyond what they do or don't have dangling between their legs. That doesn't mean I buy every argument that tries to dismiss cultural differences in the way sexes are treated as having a biological basis. I think there's an incredibly complex interplay of biology and culture involved, and that we currently have a very poor understanding of how those forces work. I suspect, but do not know, that an absolute leveling of the playing field will not lead to an equality of results. In short, I don't fit into either a left or a right mode in US politics. I'm not comfortable supporting either the Republican or the Democratic agenda and don't identify with either one of them. I know I'm not the only person like this, and those of us who don't fit don't agree with one another about many things. I'm really interested in why so many people seem to fall into one side or the other and why some of us just don't see the world that way.

Is the non-affiliated group small? Think about how political narratives are shaped in modern day systems. Neither major party in the US stands to benefit from the average voter thinking that being independent from parties in politics is a viable choice. Acknowledging people outside of the polarized views doesn't "sell papers" either. It's not like the unaffiliated people have a real incentive to go out and let you know about their unaffiliated status either.

While I think the majority of people in the US probably at some level identify with one of the major political parties, I also think you'd be surprised how close it is. (Quick Google found polling numbers at 31/24/42 for D/R/Independent.)

If those questions are valid ways of determining their opinions (I hope they're not) then democracy and rational governance are a joke. Debate doesn't happen. A couple of zombie hordes voting is not what I think of as democracy.

Valuable research. Scary results.

How about a qualified franchise. Test for this measure of non-thinking. Those who don't think enough, don't get the vote!

Canadian here. We have an election coming up, it'll be started and finished before Halloween, jealous?

You're also not directly electing your chief executive; that's done behind closed doors by the various political parties. If Americans only had to vote for their MP-equivalents (representatives and senators), our campaign season would be just as short.

No closed door involved. The leadership contests and conventions are open, often raucous. These contests chose the new party leader and then you have a choice of voting for the leader even if the local candidate is a dud. Or choosing the best candidate on offer in your riding, even if he supports a party leader you totally disagree with.

The Governor General, by convention must choose the leader of the party who can sustain a majority in the House of Commons.

I'm curious to know which side ended up taking the position in favor of paid professional jurors. :-)

Im sure you know which side chose a system that has an authoritarian aspect to it.

This isn't nearly as obvious as you might think. As someone with close friends on both sides of the divide, I've repeatedly noticed that everyone sees themselves as champions of individual rights and their opponents as authoritarians.

This is one of the things that people on both sides commonly get wrong about the other. No one in the American political discussion sees themselves as "authoritarian". They see themselves as brave defenders of important rights like <pick one, there are plenty of examples on both sides> against their evil authoritarian opponents who want to abolish those rights out of greed or malice. Meanwhile, they both see the rights that their opponents defend as unimportant or inherently infringing on more important rights.

I'm curious to know which side ended up taking the position in favor of paid professional jurors. :-)

Im sure you know which side chose a system that has an authoritarian aspect to it.

This isn't nearly as obvious as you might think. As someone with close friends on both sides of the divide, I've repeatedly noticed that both sides see themselves as champions of individual rights and their opponents as authoritarians.

This is one of the things that people on both sides commonly get wrong about the other. No one in the American political discussion sees themselves as "authoritarian". They see themselves as brave defenders of important rights like <pick one, there are plenty of examples on both sides> against their evil authoritarian opponents who want to abolish those rights out of greed or malice. Meanwhile, they both see the rights that their opponents defend as unimportant or inherently infringing on more important rights.

Using "both sides" unironically that many times in a post is not a path to being taken seriously here.

How about a qualified franchise. Test for this measure of non-thinking. Those who don't think enough, don't get the vote!

Who gets to administer the test? The problem with poll tests isn't that there are no testable traits we want in voters. It's that even if they aren't thinly-veiled attempts to disenfranchise a particular group to begin with, they get corrupted into that almost immediately.

I'm curious to know which side ended up taking the position in favor of paid professional jurors. :-)

Im sure you know which side chose a system that has an authoritarian aspect to it.

This isn't nearly as obvious as you might think. As someone with close friends on both sides of the divide, I've repeatedly noticed that both sides see themselves as champions of individual rights and their opponents as authoritarians.

This is one of the things that people on both sides commonly get wrong about the other. No one in the American political discussion sees themselves as "authoritarian". They see themselves as brave defenders of important rights like <pick one, there are plenty of examples on both sides> against their evil authoritarian opponents who want to abolish those rights out of greed or malice. Meanwhile, they both see the rights that their opponents defend as unimportant or inherently infringing on more important rights.

Using "both sides" unironically that many times in a post is not a path to being taken seriously here.

Understanding the way your opponents see themselves is valuable when fighting them, even when you don't agree with their self assessment. And if understanding them a little better leads to seeing them as human beings instead of monsters or charicatures, I have a hard time believing that's a bad thing.

I'm curious to know which side ended up taking the position in favor of paid professional jurors. :-)

Im sure you know which side chose a system that has an authoritarian aspect to it.

This isn't nearly as obvious as you might think. As someone with close friends on both sides of the divide, I've repeatedly noticed that both sides see themselves as champions of individual rights and their opponents as authoritarians.

This is one of the things that people on both sides commonly get wrong about the other. No one in the American political discussion sees themselves as "authoritarian". They see themselves as brave defenders of important rights like <pick one, there are plenty of examples on both sides> against their evil authoritarian opponents who want to abolish those rights out of greed or malice. Meanwhile, they both see the rights that their opponents defend as unimportant or inherently infringing on more important rights.

Using "both sides" unironically that many times in a post is not a path to being taken seriously here.

Understanding the way your opponents see themselves is valuable when fighting them, even when you don't agree with their self assessment. And if understanding them a little better leads to seeing them as human beings instead of monsters or charicatures, I have a hard time believing that's a bad thing.

This is a fascinating study and an equally informative article, which I want to emphasize because I don't want this comment to be mistaken for criticism of either.

What interested me as I read the article was the binary nature of the choices being offered the test subjects. I can understand the reason for doing this - you have to have a manageable test, after all, but with it I think comes some interesting risks and issues.

Imagine you come to visit me. Wishing to be a gracious host, I suggest you might like something to drink: "May I offer you a tea or coffee?" This seems entirely reasonable, but this is the illusion of choice we are given by modern political theater. This approach is neither reasonable nor generous:-

1. I have pre-limited your choices to either tea or coffee...2. I haven't told you that I have some fresh-squeezed orange juice and some mineral water in the refrigerator, which I could have offered you...3. I didn't ask if you were hungry.

Understanding the results and conclusions of this report will be of crucial importance if we ever move towards a more democratic and representative form of administrative government, because it should help us to develop politically neutral questions, voting forms and the like.

But as citizens I think we owe it to ourselves and each-other to be deeply skeptical of this sort of test. I do appreciate that if we offered a nation of voters an infinite number of choices, nothing would ever get done.

However, the incredible danger that we create for ourselves via the "two-choice" approach is that we make it tremendously easy for anyone intent on corrupting the process to be able to do so. Such an approach is simple... Allow money to be poured in to elections (campaign contributions to pay for things like TV commercials) and then, when the cost of campaigning is high enough, simply "sponsor" both candidates to the extent that they will "owe" favors.

Which is exactly the system we have today.

In this context, the illusion of choice (i.e. whether you vote Democrat or Republican - which is largely irrelevant if both candidates are taking money from the same donors) is potentially more dangerous than no choice. Because if I take your choices away, at least it is largely obvious that you are being disenfranchised. Whereas if I hide this fact behind the illusion of binary choice, you are much less likely to question the *system of control* that is thus put in place.

Did they control for how the self-identified individuals viewed each political party I.E. the degree to which they believed the other political party was overtly malicious/supported policies that would actively harm them?

If so, that could lead to them disagreeing simply because they're being asked what they think about a group they believe intends them harm.

Suppose that you were sitting down at this table. The napkins are in front of you, which napkin would you take? The one on your ‘left’? Or the one on your ‘right’? The one on your left side? Or the one on your right side? Usually you would take the one on your left side. That is ‘correct’ too. But in a larger sense on society, that is wrong. Perhaps I could even substitute ‘society’ with the ‘Universe’. The correct answer is that ‘It is determined by the one who takes his or her own napkin first.’ …Yes? If the first one takes the napkin to their right, then there’s no choice but for others to also take the ‘right’ napkin. The same goes for the left. Everyone else will take the napkin to their left, because they have no other option. This is ‘society’… Who are the ones that determine the price of land first? There must have been someone who determined the value of money, first. The size of the rails on a train track? The magnitude of electricity? Laws and Regulations? Who was the first to determine these things? Did we all do it, because this is a Republic? Or was it Arbitrary? NO! The one who took the napkin first determined all of these things! The rules of this world are determined by that same principle of ‘right or left?’! In a Society like this table, a state of equilibrium, once one makes the first move, everyone must follow! In every era, this World has been operating by this napkin principle. And the one who ‘takes the napkin first’ must be someone who is respected by all. It’s not that anyone can fulfill this role… Those that are despotic or unworthy will be scorned. And those are the ‘losers’. In the case of this table, the ‘eldest’ or the ‘Master of the party’ will take the napkin first… Because everyone ‘respects’ those individuals.

For certain core beliefs, I can cite my upbringing, and you can sum it up with the golden rule combined with "if they aren't hurting anyone it is none of my or anyone else's business", and anyone who tries to encroach and interfere with someone's personal business even if they have familial relations in a negative way is in the wrong. I have always had a strong belief in the scientific process, I blame oil industry smear campaign for making it political.

Beyond that as something I have learned over time, I believe capitalism works- so long as the government moderating and protecting it gets its taxes, and makes sure no one gets anti-competitive with key goods and services, as greed is as effective a motivator for technological progress as war, often more so. Having been called for jury duty (my county has a very effective system for it you have to be in the courthouse every day until they let you go, one group of jurors on Monday, and another on Wednesday, 5 day minimum unless let out early (longer cases in the half of the week the new group gets there)) I don't think having professional jurors is a good idea.

It's interesting that there is a relatively small group of people who don't fall into the left/right spectrum. Most people would probably call me libertarian, and it sounds like you have similar leanings. I don't call myself a libertarian because there are areas where I disagree with them sharply. I think the free market is generally good but not a panacea. There are areas, such as health care, where it falls flat on its face. I'm pro-choice, favor largely open borders and think Trump is a racist idiot. On the other hand, I think people have a right to their own opinions and a right to act on those opinions short of violence against other people. I don't think anyone should be forced to make a wedding cake for someone else, even if their reason for not doing so is bigoted. I think the 2nd Amendment clearly protects the right of individuals to bear arms and if you want to change that, you need to start by changing the Constitution. I think it's absurd to judge historical figures by current ethical standards. I do not think that human beings are blank slates, and do think that there are inherent biological differences between men and women that extend beyond what they do or don't have dangling between their legs. That doesn't mean I buy every argument that tries to dismiss cultural differences in the way sexes are treated as having a biological basis. I think there's an incredibly complex interplay of biology and culture involved, and that we currently have a very poor understanding of how those forces work. I suspect, but do not know, that an absolute leveling of the playing field will not lead to an equality of results. In short, I don't fit into either a left or a right mode in US politics. I'm not comfortable supporting either the Republican or the Democratic agenda and don't identify with either one of them. I know I'm not the only person like this, and those of us who don't fit don't agree with one another about many things. I'm really interested in why so many people seem to fall into one side or the other and why some of us just don't see the world that way.

Left and right wing mean slightly different things in the US compared to Europe, especially considering that Democrats and Republicans have dramatically switched positions on social and economic issues. The reference point for federal politics in the US is much further to the right, and seems to have kept shifting to the right since Regan. Generally, we find the mainstream of both the Democrat and Republican parties to be right wing. As a point of comparison, your New Green Deal Democrats would be viewed as left, or centre-left, modern social democrats. The hard left for us are the various communist, socialist, and anarchist parties.

On average in western Europe, your views would be considered socially progressive/liberal centrist or centre-right (depending on the details).